Social media has fundamentally changed the way society works. With the click of a button, we can instantly connect to almost any person we’ve ever met.
Social media has also made it easier for businesses to find and engage with their intended audiences. When compared to traditional awareness strategies (such as television commercials and print ads), social media marketing has the definite edge. Your ads can target specific audiences with highly relevant and personalized content.
You can also use social media to gain incredible insight into your customers, including their behaviors, their pain points, and the way that they think.
It’s an incredible time to be in business.
Through carefully crafted and optimized ads, you can use social media to drive traffic to your site. But social media marketing isn’t limited to carousel ads and promoted posts. You can also use social media influencers to gain access to your target audience.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to work with influencers to grow awareness for your SaaS. Let’s get started.
The Benefits of Working With Social Media Influencers
Being on social media is a great start, but it’s not enough.
It’s 2021 which means that creating and maintaining an active social media page is the bare minimum for most businesses. You can’t stop there.
It has become increasingly more difficult to get found by your audience on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Even if you have followers, they probably don’t see most of your posts.
Why?
Major platforms have gone pay-for-play. In other words, if you want your audience to see your posts on social media, you’ve got to pay for it. If you just use the free aspects of social media, you’ll only reach a tiny portion of your followers. The average reach of an organic Facebook post is around 2.2%. Yikes.
This is why you can’t do it alone. Paying for ads is good, but getting more people talking about your business is even better.
And this is why you need to partner with influencers.
Let’s look at the top benefits that you’ll gain from influencer marketing.
Influencers Are Trusted
Trust drives purchases. Even if they have never heard of your SaaS, a prospect is more likely to buy your product if they trust the person who recommended it.
Tweet ThisThis is the power of influencers.
Influencers have loyal followers who trust them. So, if an influencer endorses your product, their followers are more likely to buy it.
Influencers Speak to Your Target Audience
When it comes to influencers, think niche. Don’t automatically go after an influencer with millions of followers. The most powerful influencers are those with smaller, but more focused, audiences. These influencers are able to understand your audience’s pain points and craft messages that are targeted and relevant, and therefore more engaging.
Influencers Aren’t Banner Ads
Have you ever heard of banner ad blindness?
It turns out that, after years of exposure to banner ads, the average person is able to block out ads immediately when they pop up on a website. This is why a respectable click-through rate for Google Ads is around 2% and 0.1% on Facebook.
That’s serious ad blindness.
But influencers don’t have that same problem.
Influencers are able to effectively sell a product to their engaged audience.
Influencers Are an Affordable Option
Marketing can be expensive, but influencers can be affordable. Depending on your campaign, working with an influencer may be a cheaper alternative to PPC ads.
Plus, if you work with smaller influencers (such as micro-influencers with 100,000 followers or less), you’ll save even more money. You may even be able to barter services or offer some other form of non-monetary compensation in exchange for their endorsement.
When compared to other online marketing channels, influencers have a high return on investment. Businesses earn back $5.20 for every dollar they’ve invested into influencer marketing.
Influencers Are in Every Industry
There’s an influencer in every industry, no matter how big or how small. If a pain exists, there’s a person on social media who’s talking about it—and also someone who’s listening.
How to Create an Effective Influencer Campaign
Here’s what you need to know to create your first influencer campaign.
Set a S.M.A.R.T. Goal
We love S.M.A.R.T. goals around here. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This acronym will help you create better goals. Here’s how to set S.M.A.R.T. goals for your influencer campaign:
Get Specific – What are you hoping to accomplish with your first influencer campaign? Would you like to get more traffic to your website? Would you like to build awareness for a new product? Would you like to get immediate sales? Would you like to boost your reputation? Would you like to grow your own number of followers on social media?
Measure It – How will you know that you’ve reached your goal? Be sure to track action by assigning a special code or link to an influencer. For example, if you’re hoping to build awareness for your business, you can use a social listening tool to discover if your campaign is working.
Make It Attainable – Every goal should be possible. Don’t expect to get 1,000 leads from a micro-influencer with 1,000 followers.
Make It Relevant – Choose a goal that positively impacts your business, and not just your vanity. For example, don’t just ask for followers for the sake of building your social media numbers. Ask for followers if you know that you can convert a good portion of them into customers.
Bind It to a Set Time – Your goal needs to have a due date. When working with influencers, especially during your first engagement, choose an end-date for when you want to hit your objectives.
Find the Right Influencers for Your SaaS Brand
After figuring out your campaign objective, it’s time to locate the right influencers to make it happen. Here’s how to do that:
- Identify the influencers in your industry that you already know and respect. You may even follow a few on social media.
- Identify influencers who may not be in your same industry as you but still speak to your target audience.
- Search for influencers who have small communities. Because their followers are more loyal, micro-influencers are better than celebrities with millions of followers.
- Search for influencers with high levels of engagement. It’s ideal to work with this type of influencer because they have forged a strong connection with their audience.
- Search for influencers who are considered subject-matter experts. Followers are more likely to trust an educated opinion.
Search for influencers the same way that your target audience does: Through social media. Using search, look for posts that are relevant to your SaaS.
Make a list of the influencers you like the most, along with their email address, social media profile link, and any special notes.
Reach Out to Influencers
After you’ve created a list, reach out to the influencers. Share with them who you are and why you’re reaching out to them. Ask them if they’d like to work with your brand in exchange for your tantalizing offer (whether that’s free access to your service or cold, hard cash).
How much can you expect to pay an influencer?
The answer depends on multiple factors, including:
- The influencer’s number of followers
- The influencer’s engagement rate on their posts
- How many posts you want
- What type of post you want
- What you ask the influencer to do (create a video, write a blog post, share a photo of themselves using your product, etc.)
- Your industry
According to WebFX, here’s a quick pricing guide for influencers based on the platform:
Facebook – $25 per 1,000 followers
Instagram – $10 per 1,000 followers
Twitter – $2 per 1,000 followers
YouTube – $20 per 1,000 followers
Snapchat – $10 per 1,000 followers
Sponsored Blog – $60 per 1,000 followers
Final Thoughts
Influencers can be more persuasive than ads, and more affordable, too. Use the above tips to identify influencers who can effectively promote your SaaS and products to their followers.
Before you go, check out these related posts:
- How to Get Your First 100 SaaS Customers
- Use Emotions to Convert Prospects into SaaS Customers
- How to Create a Social Media Engagement Funnel
